


The Night Watch

by templeremus



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s05e13 The Big Bang, F/M, Love, Loyalty, Missing Scene, The Blitz, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-30 00:03:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19030669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeremus/pseuds/templeremus
Summary: Over 2,000 years, Rory does his best to stay out of trouble - but trouble has a way of finding him.





	The Night Watch

It was raining on the night the bomb fell.  
  
Much later, Rory would remember how the water had hissed as it struck the pavement, the chemical glare and the heat from the blaze making the whole street shimmer, like a mirage. He would remember the din all around him, the ack-ack guns louder than thunder and the ambulances screaming just a few streets away.  
  
Of the rush to save Pandorica, though, there was nothing. The door to that recollection remained firmly closed, and he declined to probe any further.  
  
The first clear, accessible moment from that night came from the hours afterwards. By the time the fire crew arrived, the warehouse was almost gone. Rory watched them under cover of the darkness provided by a neighbouring alleyway: the boys half-drunk with tiredness in their helmets and rubber boots, the chain of men and women hefting buckets as fast as waiting hands could take them. At one point somebody gestured towards him, in fear or disbelief, and he pulled back, almost convinced that he could feel his own heart pounding in his ears; though in reality this body had no pulse, only the instinctive memory of one, and a human mind that still, many centuries on, strove to fill the gap.  
  
Dawn came, and everything grew still.  
  
Once he was sure of being alone, Rory took stock of the damage. The box was half-covered in ash but otherwise unscathed, its patterns glowing dully in the early-morning sun. The centurion's helmet was defiled with soot, and the cloak had fused to his back. The act of tearing it free produced a faint tugging sensation, but no pain. Not for the first time, he was grateful for the insensate stuff from which this body was made. The damage, though permanent, could be hidden with a change of clothes. It was time to fade into the background again.  
  
He found that he was sorry to lose the armour. It had served him through the fall of empires and shielded him from more blows than he cared to count. Even now, when so many other civilisations had vanished, danger was never far away. He would have to be especially careful along this final stretch. The world was speeding up, racing towards the age of the jet and the nuclear warhead. He and Amy would need a quiet place to ride it out.   
  
He let his hands rest on the Pandorica and pictured her face - not grey and slack as he had last seen it, but alive with recognition. The certainty in it, the ferocity, and the love.  
"Don't worry. I'll sort this," he said into the silence. "We're gonna make it out."

* * *

 

The museum's curator was the wrong age to have fought, in this war or any other. His eyes took in the stiff way in which Rory cradled his right arm - an old habit, shielding the gun from view - but he said nothing. There were plenty of men who were like that now, reshaped by fire and shrapnel. Dwelling on it was not the done thing. Instead he presented Rory with a uniform and torch, passing them over with a little bow that was equal parts formal and absurd.   
  
"Best have your wits about you, my boy. The nights are slow here. Anyone found asleep at their post can expect to answer to me."  
  
Rory had to suppress a smile at that. He hadn't so much as dozed since he was human, and those days belonged to another reality altogether.

* * *

Keeping watch in the museum was different from anything that he had experienced hitherto. The silence was echoing and the high vaulted ceilings played tricks with the light, so that dawn seemed to last for hours. He passed the time by memorising the exhibits: most of them younger than him, a few - the empty sarcophagus, a mournful-looking Asian lion - even more ancient. He treated these with the kind of respect that ordinary humans paid to war heroes. They were proof that survival, against all the odds, was still possible.

On the far wall was a slightly breathless account of the Pandorica's journey to the museum, interwoven with a few hazarded dates and urban legends. Before long Rory had the inscription down by heart, and on his patrol route through the museum's deserted hallways, he added to it. Whatever happened next, he wanted to remember this story, wanted some trace of it to linger as the Universe boiled into nothingness.

_One last act of devotion_ , said the text on the far wall.   
  
"One last act of devotion," said the narrator, once the technology became available: "to the box he had pledged to protect for nearly two thousand years..."  
  
It wouldn't be long now.


End file.
